Tradition / Region: Inuit Mythology
Alternate Names: —
Category: Spirit
The Myth
Aksharquarnilik is a spirit encountered during shamanic healing rituals, acting as a helping spirit who reveals the hidden causes of illness.
In one account, a woman named Nanoraq, the wife of Måkik, lay gravely ill, suffering pain throughout her body and barely able to stand. She was placed on a bench, and all the people of the village were summoned. The shaman Angutingmarik began a ritual to discover the source of her sickness.
Walking slowly back and forth across the floor, Angutingmarik swung his arms while wearing mittens, breathing heavily and speaking in groans and sighs, his voice shifting in tone. He called upon his helping spirits and addressed Aksharquarnilik directly, asking whether the illness had come from a broken taboo—something eaten improperly, wrongdoing by himself, by his wife, or by the sick woman herself.
The patient answered that the sickness was her own fault. She confessed that she had failed in her duties and that her thoughts and actions had been bad. The shaman continued, describing what he perceived spiritually: something resembling peat, though not peat; something behind the ear like cartilage; something white and gleaming, possibly the edge of a pipe.
At this, the listeners cried out together that the woman had smoked a pipe she was forbidden to smoke. They agreed to forgive the offense and urged that it be ignored. But the shaman declared that this was not the only cause. There were further transgressions responsible for the illness.
Asked again whether the cause lay with him or with the patient, the woman replied that it was entirely her own doing. She said there had been wrongdoing connected to her abdomen, something internal that had brought about the sickness.
Through Aksharquarnilik, the hidden violations and their physical manifestations were revealed, allowing the community to acknowledge the causes of the illness and begin the process of purification and healing.
Source
Rasmussen, K. (1930). Intellectual Culture of the Hudson Bay Eskimos. p. 133.
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